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Tuesday, November 27, 2012

CILIP Information Literacy Group is again sponsoring information literacy awards.
1. Information Literacy Practitioner of the Year. This recognises an outstanding individual contribution to information literacy. Nominations are welcomed from all sectors. The winner will receive £500 for personal use and £500 for their nominated charity. Closing date: January 31st 2013. For full details see: http://lilacconference.com/WP/awards/il-practitioner-of-the-year-award/

2. Student Award: Sponsored Place at LILAC. The award consists of conference registration, travel and accommodation expenses for two students registered on a UK study programme. Closing date: January 17th 2013. For full details see: http://lilacconference.com/WP/awards/student-sponsored-place-at-lilac/Photo by Sheila Webber: Fringe of leaves, November 2012

Saturday, November 24, 2012

There is a call for presenters for a series of Information Literacy Summits: Bridging the Gap: Knowledge Creation, Information Literacy, and the Role of Technology in Education. They are taking place in three locations in Illinois, USA: April 10, 2013 (Illinois State University (Normal); April 12 2013 (Moraine Valley Community College (Palos Hills); April 16 2013 (John A. Logan College (Carterville). They are particularly interested in breakout sessions and panels.
"In keeping with the Summit theme, we'd like to make explicit the connection between teaching and learning digital literacies and the use of technology to teach and learn. We are extending our call for proposals outside of the library community to educational technologists, instructional designers, and instructional technologists."
More info at http://www.morainevalley.edu/infolitsummit/ and form to propose at http://tinyurl.com/summitproposal, deadline is January 31 2013.
Topics include: Digital literacy; Flipping the classroom in information literacy sessions; Implementing technology in online or f2f classrooms; Connecting technologies to learning outcomes; Facilitating learning with technology; Digital media labs; Content creation and capture tools; Multimedia instruction; Collaboration across departments and organizations; Challenges and possibilities for the future.Photo by Sheila Webber: Walking to work (when the weather was better) November 2012

Friday, November 23, 2012

The latest issue (no. 13, 2012) of the Pakistan Journal of Library & Information Science (PJLIS) has gone online, and it includes an article by one of my new PhD students (Syeda Hina Batool, right), who is a faculty member in the Department of Library and Information Science, University of the Punjab, and who is registered here for a PhD joint location.
- Teachers’ conceptions about information literacy skills of school children by Syeda Hina Batool and Khalid Mahmood
Other articles include:
- Information seeking by Pakistani farmers: A review of published research
by Muhammad Asif Naveed, Mumtaz A. Anwar and Surraya Bano
- Access and use of the internet among undergraduate students in the Faculty of Arts, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh by Md. Anwarul Islam and Muhammad Jaber Hossain.
The open access journal is at http://pu.edu.pk/home/journal/8

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

There is a section on "Impact of Information Literacy" in the latest version of the bibliography Impact and Outcome of Libraries compiled by Dr. Roswitha Poll (a German expert in library evaluation). An announcement says that "The new version of bibliography has 421 titles, the result of the work on the new ISO standard, ISO 16439: Methods and procedures for assessing the impact of libraries that is to be published in 2013." You can download the bibliography from http://www.ifla.org/publications/publications-associated-with-the-s-e-sectionPhoto by Sheila Webber: cat in Botanical Gardens, Sheffield. I think it had just been chasing a squirrel.

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Presentations from the seminar Learning Resources Conference 2012: Discovering New Horizons in the Digital Landscape (organised by RSC Northwest and RSC Yorkshire & Humber and held in Manchester, UK, 8 November 2012) are online. Two particularly relevant presentations are:
- Drowning in information but starved for knowledge: the Digital Literacy challenge in FE [Further Education]: Presented by Andrew Eynon, Grŵp Llandrillo-Menai
- 23 things: social media tools to help you with professional development Presented by Anthony Beal, JISC RSChttp://moodle.rsc-northwest.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=185Photo by Sheila Webber: lone watcher, November 2012

Monday, November 19, 2012

Public access, private mobile: The interplay of shared access and the mobile Internet for Teenagers in Cape Town is the report from a study led by Marion Walton (University of Cape Town) and Jonathan Donner (Microsoft Research India). "Discussion is structured around five claims [based on their research]:
- Public access and private mobiles offer different affordances, and teenage users have developed complex, fine-grained practices which help them to negotiate the respective strengths and weaknesses of the affordances."
- The public access venue provides non-substitutable impact to resource-constrained users, even those with 'the Internet in their pocket.'"
- Public access supports the development of digital literacies associated with hyperlinked media and large-format documents, while mobile access supports everyday social literacies and messaging."
- Teens can use a combination of mobile and public access Internet resources to participate in networked media production and grassroots economic mobilization."
- Public access venue operators can improve venue rules and skills to encourage the complementary use of the mobile Internet."
Walton, M., Donner, J. (2012). Public access, private mobile: The interplay of shared access and the mobile Internet for teenagers in Cape Town. Cape Town, South Africa: University of Cape Town. Linked from http://www.globalimpactstudy.org/publications-summary/Photo by Sheila Webber: Botanical gardens, Sheffield, November 2012

Friday, November 16, 2012

Andrew Walsh has made his card game SEEK available under a Creative Commons license for free download. You have the instructions, notes for tutors and the cards (front and back) ready to print out. The winner is the first person to get to ten points: you gain points by responding to a question from the cards correctly. The cards tell you to do things like identify the most important words in a search question and think of synonyms for searching (see examples on the right, click on the picture to see it larger). The download is in a zipped file from: http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/15377/

Another call for papers for the Canadian Information Literacy conference: WILU. The Conference will be held at The University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada, May 8-10, 2013. The theme for WILU 2013 is Synchronicity: The Time is Now. Possible topics include: Merging tradition with innovation; Balancing educational theory with pedagogical practice; Providing instruction for interdisciplinary programs; Theorizing instructional technology; Distributed instruction; Information ethics; Open access resources for instruction; Literacies: information and beyond. The deadline for proposal submissions is December 3rd, 2012. More info at http://lib.unb.ca/WILU/program/call-for-proposals/

Thursday, November 15, 2012

There is a call for abstracts for the 7th International Evidence Based Library and Information Practice Conference (EBLIP7). This takes place at the University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada July 15-18, 2013. Conference themes are: Beyond the horizon (visioning the future, investigation, discovery); Ploughing new terrain (cultivating and enhancing productivity through innovation, experimentation, transforming practice); Harvesting the rewards (assessing outcomes, impact, value) and Summer fallow (lessons learnt, reflection, insight). There is a call for research papers, reviews of evidence, reports of innovative practice, hot topic discussion papers, and poster presentations. Submission deadline is 30 November, 2012. Further information at http://eblip7.library.usask.ca/Photo by Sheila Webber: Cat in botanical gardens, November 2012

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

An article (in Spanish) outlines a three stage model for information literacy in formal education. The abstract reads: "A three-phased model is proposed for addressing information competence in the context of compulsory education. The 3 basic phases are information searching, management and communication. A study of the current standard curriculum identified the objectives and content corresponding to the three phases, with the aim of assisting centres in establishing programs for each educational stage. The goal is to help improve the design of research projects that are carried out in the classroom as well as to develop information literacy using the school library. The text points to areas in which the school library can play an important role in supporting the curriculum for skills development."
Anna Blasco Olivares and Glòria Durban Roca (2012) "La competencia informacional en la enseñanza obligatoria a partir de la articulación de un modelo específico." Revista Española de Documentación Científica, 100-135 doi: 10.3989/redc.2012.mono.979 http://redc.revistas.csic.es/index.php/redc/article/view/746/827 and the 2nd author blogs about it Spanish herePhoto by Sheila Webber: autumn stairs, November 2012

Jennifer joined with Dr Shahd Salha (graduate of the iSchool) and Bill Johnston (Honorary Research Fellow, Strathclyde University) in presenting a one-hour seminar on information literacy at the iSchool on 9th December, chaired by Sheila Webber.

The 4th International Conference on Information Science and Information Literacy will be held in Sibiu, Romania, April 17-19, 2013. There are broad themes: Information literacy; Education (e.g. Teaching information literacy; Reviewing the fundamentals of education and curriculum redesign); Digital libraries; and Information science and technologies (e.g. Information retrieval; Data mining strategies for digital libraries). There is still a call for papers open. More info at http://bcu.ulbsibiu.ro/conference/Photo by Sheila Webber: Squirrel, Sheffield, Nov 2012

Monday, November 12, 2012

There is a blog for this group ("an informal and impromtu reading group for London librarians interested in research, learning and information literacy") just set up.The group had their first meeting on 8th November and plan a further meeting in December. http://lllrrg.wordpress.com/

The authors of the Manifesto for Teaching Online, led by Clara O’Shea (University of Edinburgh, Scotland), will discuss the Manifesto on Tuesday 13 November, 12 noon SL time (which is 8pm UK time, see http://tinyurl.com/d3m6bzs for times elsewhere) on Infolit iSchool in the virtual world, Second Life (SL), http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Infolit%20iSchool/132/239/22 ). You need a SL avatar and the SL browser on your computer, to participate. All welcome!

The Manifesto for Teaching Online is a series of brief statements that attempt to capture what is generative and productive about online teaching, course design, writing, assessment and community. It was produced by Jen Ross, Clara O’Shea, Sian Bayne and Hamish Macleod members of the programme team on the MSc in E-learning at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, and has attracted a lot of interest and debate - see http://onlineteachingmanifesto.wordpress.com/

A Sheffield iSchool Centre for Information Literacy Research event.Picture (with one of the Manifesto statements) by Sheila Webber, taken in Second Life.

Friday, November 09, 2012

There are abstracts and presentations from the major Canadian conference, WILU, which took place in May 2012. Numerous very interesting presentations e.g. (to choose a few at random)
- Massive! Open! Online!: Understanding MOOCs and Their Impact on Library Instruction and Services
- Faculty Members’ Perceptions of Technology-Oriented Support by Liaison Librarians at the University of Alberta
- Reel Life, Reel Students, Reel Experiences: Videos as a Teaching and Learning Tool
- Best practices for Very Large Team Teaching: A Case Study of a Graduate Course in Health Librarianship
- A Sampling of Post-Secondary Integrated Information Literacy Programs in British Columbia
Abstracts and links at http://sites.macewan.ca/wilu2012/program/program-abstracts/Photo by Sheila Webber: Trees, shadow, autumn, November 2012

Thursday, November 08, 2012

One of the themes for the library/information conference, Umbrella, is information literacy. Umbrella takes place in Manchester, UK, 2 - 3 July 2013.
There is a call for papers, deadline 30 November. The theme name is Information to best support society: Information and digital literacy in education, work, health and leisure. Suggested topics are: The positive impact of information literacy and the importance of innovation to secure its place in a learning society; The importance of maintaining information literacy development opportunities for people as they move between different settings e.g. school/FE/HE/research/ employment; How Library and Information Professionals are adapting an information literacy offer in a social media context; Developing the developers: explorations with employers and educators to ensure that information literacy practitioners are relevant and appropriate to the environment they operate in. More info at http://www.cilip.org.uk/umbrella2013/pages/call-for-papers.aspxPhoto by Sheila Webber: Bicycles, autumn, Psychology building, November 2012

Wednesday, November 07, 2012

There is a call for Papers for the 2012 Conference of Asian Media Literacy and Education being held December 1, 2012 in Chongqing, China.Contact is Pro. Guo Xiaoke gxiaoke@gmail.com "Tsinghua International Center for Communications (TICC) is a founding member of the UNESCO-UNAOC UNITWIN on Media and Information Literacy and Intercultural Dialogue (from now “Network”), created in May 2010. UNITWIN = University Twinning and Networking Programme of UNESCO. The main objective of the Network is to build capacity in each country and regional areas in order to further develop media and information literacy and intercultural dialogue programs and to contribute to the achievement of the UN Millennium Development Goals."

They say "In light of the fact that teenagers and college students are the main users of internet media, the theme of the conference is how to effectively raise media literacy in institutions of higher learning and teenage education." Therefore their key topics are: Status-quo of media exposure of teenagers and college students; How to raise media literacy and conduct media education of teenagers; Challenges from social media to Journalism education; Study of China’s online public opinion. Papers should be 4,000- 10,000 words, with a 300 word abstract and biography of the author.The abstract should be emailed by November 15, 2012 and the full text by November 20, 2012 to nadnew@163.com
The following was given as the contact website, but when I just looked at the Google translation of it, I couldn't immediately see anything about this specific conference http://www.media.tsinghua.edu.cn . I found the information originally here.Photo by Sheila Webber: Trapped autumn leaf, Royal Standard, November 2012

Tuesday, November 06, 2012

The American Library Association's Digital Literacy Task Force is running a session Creating a Culture of Learning: How Librarians Keep up with Digital Media and Technology on Google Hangout on November 14, at 7pm EST (which is 12 midnight in the UK).
"Creating a Culture of Learning will explore how information professions can stay ahead of or on the learning curve with our students, colleagues and patrons as new devices, software and Internet-enabled services emerge. It is part of a series that began at the 2012 ALA Annual Conference and will continue in December with a discussion on assessing digital literacy." Speakers are:
- Caroline Haebig, instructional technology coordinator, Adlai E. Stevenson High School.
- Jamie Hollier, a technology, project management, and library consultant
- Gwyneth Jones, aka The Daring Librarian, a middle-school teacher librarian at Murray Hill Middle School in Laurel, Maryland.
- Bobbi Newman, aka Librarian by Day, currently enrolled at Iowa State University pursuing her second master’s degree.
- Anu Vedantham, who directs the Weigle Information Commons at the University of Pennsylvania Libraries.
"Join the conversation by watching a live-stream of the panelists on YouTube and chatting with other viewers and tweeting with the hash tag #digilit12. Questions and comments will be submitted to panelists throughout the program. The URL for the YouTube broadcast will be tweeted and posted to the District Dispatch by 6:30 p.m. EST, at the latest. Please RSVP at alawash@alawash.org." More details at: http://www.districtdispatch.org/2012/11/oitp-confirms-speakers-for-culture-of-learning-in-online-digital-literacy-forum-november-14/Photo by Sheila Webber, taken in Second Life.

Saturday, November 03, 2012

Short articles on information literacy by Elsevier customers feature in the latest issue of their newsletter, Library Connect. There are stories from various countries e.g. "Information competence development for Lithuanian academic community" and "Back to basics: Sheetal Tank [an Indian librarian] builds an information literacy program to address core skill levels." There is a blog entry listing the individual articles here and the pdf of the whole issue is at http://libraryconnect.elsevier.com/sites/default/files/lcn1003.pdfPhoto by Sheila Webber: autumn leaf, October 2012

Friday, November 02, 2012

The latest report of Project Information Literacy (PIL) is the output from interviews with 23 employers in the USA and 33 recent graduates from US universities. They were asked about the ways in which they were expected to work with information in the workplace. Similar results to some previous studies in this area emerged e.g. the need to find and present information to short deadlines and the need to work well with others to solve information problems. The graduates did feel that some of the skills the developed at university (e.g. being able to evaluate information) were valuable in the workplace and there are some interesting quotes. "This report is the first in a new research initiative at PIL called the "The Passage Studies." These studies investigate the information transitions young adults go through at critical junctures in their lives." The full report is at http://projectinfolit.org/pdfs/PIL_fall2012_workplaceStudy_FullReport.pdf
There is a prereview video about the new study http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gOtjexhyvE&feature=youtu.bePhoto by Sheila Webber: Red leaves against blue sky, October 2012

Information Literacy is ...

"the adoption of appropriate information behaviour to identify, through whatever channel or medium, information well fitted to information needs, leading to wise and ethical use of information in society." (Webber and Johnston)